Valtteri Bottas regretted Alfa Romeo's lack of points in the Austrian GP and showed concern about the evolution of rivals, who have left his team behind in the championship
In a true race of recovery in the Austrian GP, held last Sunday (10), Valtteri Bottas found himself inside the scoring zone on the last lap after starting from the pit-lane by the choice of Alfa Romeo - which had already been punished for engine changes.On the last lap of the race, after starting from the pit-lane, Alfa Romeo had already been punished for the Finn's engine changes. However, tenth place slipped away on the last lap to Fernando Alonso's Alpine, and Bottas was keen to show his dismay at leaving the Red Bull Ring with nothing left.
"It's a shame, because there are no points for 11th," Bottas lamented. "We tried, but we just didn't have enough pace. Fernando [Alonso] was approaching very fast with a set of new tires, and he ended up coming at me on the last lap. So it was a shame," he pointed out.
The worst news for Alfa Romeo, which also saw Guanyu Zhou leave Spielberg without points - he finished 14th - was the approach of rival teams occupying the middle of the field. Both McLaren and Alpine scored points with their two cars, which brought the teams to 81 points. With 51 points, Hinwil's team already sees 30 points separating it from its next rivals - and that's not counting the fact that Haas has reached 34 and narrowed the gap.
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"[The performance] has not really improved, we feel we should have had a better pace this weekend," Bottas said. "I think we should have been... Not easily in the top-10, but at least inside it. So we'll look to understand why we weren't," he continued.
Bottas even indicated that Alfa Romeo worked on improvements to the car for the Austrian race, but argued that the new rear wing also brought some negative aspects. Moreover, Valtteri showed concern about the evolution of the surrounding rivals, who have been constantly improving the car - and charged his team to do the same.
"I used a smaller rear wing for the race, which was obviously faster on the straights," the Finnish driver explained. "But it was losing a little bit [of speed] in the corners. We definitely need to keep progressing, because all the other teams are too," he finished.